“Okay then.” She swung her foot a little, her eyes locked on him.
He shifted on his seat. Swallowed at the lump in his throat. Rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Oh, you mean, you can explain, but not today?” Her lips twisted. “Or is it that you can, but you’re just not going to?”
He ducked his head and gave her a sheepish smile. “Just… can’t.”
Her eyes closed for a heartbeat, and she let out a soft sigh. “Like the time in the pub at Covent Gardens?”
Ah, the infamous ‘pub incident’, when he’d reduced the guy who’d felt Tahlee up to a gibbering mess with a single djinn-powered look. How he’d escaped explaining that one, he didn’t know. Some higher power had been smiling on him that night.
Or maybe it had been the spectacular dip-and-kiss move he’d performed, reducing her to a moaning puddle of sexual arousal, immediately after confronting the guy?
When it came to distracting her, he’d been a master.
Ha. Master. You’re a comedian, Jimmy Boy.
Tahlee’s lips twisted more. “I still don’t understand what happened on that dance floor.”
And she never would if he had any say in it. Even now, what had transpired left him unnerved. Impressed with his own skill, but also unnerved.
Smiling, he threaded his hands behind his head. “I see you’re still into making life hell for wankers.”
She barked out a laugh. “That’s very perceptive and honest of you to call yourself a wanker, James.”
“I was referring to the politician you followed from London.”
Her lips curled in a smug smile.
He grinned, even as a sharp longing stabbed at his heart. He’d missed her. So much. Every day, in fact. Had spent endless hours and minutes convincing himself the aching pang would one day go away.
That day had yet to come. But it would.
It had to.
And now you’re going to be in her company twenty-four seven for who knows how long. Remember what happened the last time you were in this situation?
“So what happens now?”
He filled his lungs at her question and let it out in a shaky laugh. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”
“My hotel? London?” Biting delight danced in her eyes. “Walmart?”
“A safe house.”
A slight frown tugged at her dark eyebrows. “Not your place?”
“No.” No way was he strong enough to take Tahlee back to his place. For starters, she’d scoff at his bachelor-pad décor (granting wishes to drunken CEOs in bars paid off sometimes), and secondly, he’d have to move out the second she left his life again. Anytime he’d look at anything she’d touched… “The safe house is warded, so no one will be able to locate you, no matter how clever they are.”
“Warded? You mean guarded?”
Shite. “Yeah. Guarded. High-tech security. I think it’s called the Ward System.”
The Ward System? What the fuck was he going on about? And how quickly could Nim or Christen or… or… hell, any other Guarded Souls team member get to the safe house and plant some kind of high-tech-looking security boxes?
Tahlee narrowed her eyes. “There are so many things you’re not telling me, James Hastin.”
She wasn’t wrong.
She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
He didn’t, either. Back in London, he’d rarely kept anything from her. Apart from the fact he was an ageless djinn trapped in the world of man, and that James Hastin wasn’t his real name, or even his first fake name, and—
“Let’s get going.” He almost leaped to his feet. “It’ll take a while to drive to the safe house, and I’ll have to get gas on the way.”
“James.”
He moved to the door.
“James.”
Grabbing the doorknob, he threw her a smile over his shoulder. “We’ll swing by your hotel and grab your stuff.”
“James.”
Shite.
Stopping, he let out another ragged breath and leaned back against the wall beside the door. “Okay. You’ve got questions. That’s only fair.”
She sat motionless, her eyes searching his.
They were as beautiful as he remembered. As beautiful as they’d always been. Hazel green with emerald chips, and direct and challenging as ever. Her lashes were as long and thick and as dark as her hair, and for the first time, he realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. He’d always liked her glasses. She’d had a quirky little habit of pulling them from her face and swinging them around by one stem when she was feeling playful.
She wouldn’t be swinging them around now. There was nothing playful about the way she regarded him. In her beautiful eyes, a world of hurt and anger swam.
“Hit me with them,” he said. This wasn’t going to be pretty. If she didn’t hate him already, she would soon.
She swallowed, eyebrows dipping. “Why?”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant.
Why had he taken off a few minutes after she’d told him she loved him, never to have any connection with her again?
That soft, single-word question tore at him, ripped him apart. But the wretched pain, the acrid guilt that word awoke in him, was nothing compared to what could’ve happened if he’d stayed.
If only he could tell her.
“Because I’m a coward,” he said.
The air cracked with the swift intake of her breath. Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.
“Bullshit.” She shook her head, jaw clenching. “You’re a lot of things, James, but a coward?” She shook her head again.
What should he do?
There were a number of untold things he could do… if he wanted to unleash his true power on her.
And what would that do? You know all about cause and effect. If you removed yourself from her memory, her soul, what would happen when she—
“I wish I’d never met you,” she said quietly.
The room turned cold, artic. His breath crushed his lungs.
And then the tingle began. Deep in his core. The rush…
“You what?”
She scrunched up her face and shook her head a third time. “You destroyed me, James. I’ve never loved anyone before, but I loved you. And I told you, I bared my soul to you, and you excused yourself, said you needed to go to the bathroom. You were always one for mischief, so I thought you were having a lark, but you never came back. I sat at that table, in that restaurant, for I don’t know how long, waiting for you to come back… and you never did. I told you I loved you, and you disappeared,” she clicked her fingers, “just like that. But what really does my head in is… I was certain you felt the same for me.”
He swallowed the dry planet in his throat.
“I was sure you loved me back,” she continued, her voice steady and calm and all the more cutting for it. “And then you vanished.” The shadow of pain darkened her eyes. “I wish…”
Don’t say it. Please don’t say—
“Hey, Hastin.” The door swung open, and Kitt stuck his head through the gap. “Nathanial’s got the safe house ready for you.”
Tahlee straightened to her feet. “I’m going back to London.”
James straightened. “No.”
“No?”
Kitt cleared his throat. “Hastin is correct. It seems your presence in the men’s bathroom didn’t go as unnoticed as you believed, Ms. Hope. Kade just took a call from the detective you spoke to. Your room at the Residence Inn has been,” he flicked James a quick glance, “trashed.”
James curled his fists. His quick jump into the temporal plane earlier hadn’t revealed any threat to Tahlee; no otherworldly threads had linked back to Rourke’s aide, nor any human ones.
He’d almost believed her presence in the men’s toilet had been missed.
Clearly that wasn’t the case.
“Trashed?” Shock flittered over Tahlee’s face, followed by irritation. Not fear, not p
anic, just anger and frustration. “Great. My laptop was there. Excellent. There goes all the work I’d done on Simmons.”
“You don’t back it up?”
She raised her eyes at Kitt. “To the Cloud? You’re kidding, right? I don’t trust the Cloud.”
Tahlee didn’t trust anyone or anything.
Except James. She’d told him that one night, stretched out beside him in their bed, her bare leg slung across his bare thigh, her fingers playing with his right nipple, her breath warm on his chest. “Trusting only makes you weak,” she’d whispered. “But I trust you, James. It’s like you’ve been in my heart forever.”
The confession had filled him with a dangerous level of joy. He’d responded by taking her to hitherto unknown heights of sexual pleasure.
He should have gotten out then and there.
He hadn’t.
Tell Kitt to take her to the safe house. Give the wolf shifter the job of protecting Tahlee. Get her out of your life. Again. Before it’s too late.
His gut clenched.
You know you have to. You know what almost happened before. What will happen if you—
He held out his hand to Tahlee. “C’mon, Hope. Let’s get your arse to the safe house.”
No way he was letting anyone else protect her. Even someone as capable as Kitt.
She studied his hand, and then frowned up at him. “Can we go via the hotel?”
“It’s all good. I can rustle up some new PJs and whatnot for you.”
Rustle. Ha, he’d never used that word before to describe the djinn procurement of… things.
An unreadable tension passed over her face and her hand moved to the middle of her chest before dropping back to her lap. “It’s not…”
Kitt cleared his throat. “There was no laptop listed in the items found in the room, Ms. Hope.”
“It’s not my laptop. There’s something…” She threw a frown at James again. “Else.”
“We can do that.”
“I don’t think…” Uncertainty filled Kitt’s voice.
James grinned at him. “It’s all good, Rover. Don’t stress.”
Kitt raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve got it covered.” And he did. The odds of the person or persons who’d tossed Tahlee’s room coming back while they were there were slim, and if they did… well, James had ways of dealing with them. It’d make everyone’s job easier if they did come back, in fact.
And if they do, you can take out some of your frustration on them before handing them over to the cops.
Tempting, but he couldn’t let Tahlee see his true self, his true power. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t get physical—human style. It’d been a while since he’d gotten into an old-fashioned fist fight, to be sure, but he could still floor a man in one punch if needed, no djinn force required.
“Sure you don’t want me to come along?” Kitt asked.
“He’ll be okay.” Kade appeared at the door. “I know he won’t let anything happen to Ms. Hope.”
James narrowed his eyes. The vampire’s behavior was unusual. Like he was up to something. Although, to be fair, Kade was always up to something and rarely predictable. The only constant thing about Kade was the fact you never knew what was going on behind those piercing green eyes of his.
“Take the Jeep.” Kade tossed a set of keys at James. “It’ll be better in this case than that thing you normally get around in.”
That thing you normally get around in being code for translocating at will, no car or bike or any other form of human transportation required.
Kitt chuckled.
James grimaced. Figures Kade would know he hadn’t yet thought about how he’d get Tahlee to the safe house. The whole “stop for gas” thing had been a woeful attempt to appear as if Tahlee suddenly being back in his life meant nothing.
Of course, if Kade hadn’t already tossed keys at him, James would have just… procured a traditional mode of transportation before he and Tahlee reached the Guarded Souls parking lot. A quick cough to hide the click and voila—a Harley. Or Ferrari.
Dipping into a mocking bow, he grinned at Kade. “Thank you, boss.” He turned to Tahlee. “M’lady?”
“You don’t get to call me that, Hastin.”
“I like her, Jimmy Boy.” Kitt chuckled again. “Whatever history there is between you, can you get it all settled? She’d be fun at the Guarded Souls Halloween party.”
“You’re a riot, Rover. A riot.”
“Are you sure I can’t go back to London?” Tahlee folded her arms. “I’ve got a goldfish with serious attitude holding down the fort back there. He’ll keep me safe.”
“Gary is still alive?”
A soft smile played with her lips. “Gary is still alive.”
They’d bought Gary together at the Portobello Road markets. A month before he took off.
“Good for Gary.” He grinned. “But no. You can’t.”
Her jaw bunched, and she let out a choppy breath. “You’re going to be my undoing, James Hastin.”
He chuckled, even as that old familiar pang hit his heart again. If only she knew the truth. “If it helps, I’ve gotten really good at putting the toilet seat down since you last knew me.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, like that’s the reason I want to kill you. Let’s go.”
And with that, she strode past Kade and Kitt and out of Kade’s office.
Kitt’s lips twitched. Kade regarded him with an unblinking gaze. “Have fun.”
Fun.
James’s chest tightened. Fun wasn’t really the word coming to mind.
Shite, he was in trouble.
* * * *
Ducking under the police tape crisscrossing the door to her suite at the Residence Inn, James let out a soft whistle. “Well, whoever they were, you’ve got to give them points for a job well done.”
Rolling her eyes, Tahlee began to duck beneath the tape as well.
“No, no.” James bent at the waist, locking stares with her from the other side of the threshold, and shook his head. “You’re staying there for a moment.”
She straightened. “Really?”
He chuckled, his usual response to any scathing sarcasm she directed his way when they were together.
Together. What they weren’t anymore.
Her throat thickened. “It’s my room.” She flicked the police tape with her fingers. “I’m coming in.”
“Sure. Give me a sec first, though.”
She rolled her eyes. “James, I don’t think the bad guys are in there now, do you.”
He grinned. “Say bad guys again.”
“No.” She hooked her fingers under the police tape.
“Just—” He halted her hand with his own. “Give me a moment. Please?”
She studied his face, his enigmatic expression. “Okay. You’ve got until I count to ten.”
“Perfect.” He turned to the room. Stood motionless.
Tahlee frowned at his back. “You’re not going in?”
“Shh.” He raised an index finger without looking at her.
“Fine. One, two, three, four.”
He chuckled but didn’t move.
“Five. Six.” Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she scowled. “Seven.”
“Done.” He half-turned and pulled the police tape up a few inches. “Come see what you can find.”
Ducking under the tape, she stepped into her suite. Whoa, whoever had been in here truly had destroyed it. Nothing was right-side up. The generic hotel artworks had been pulled from the walls, the suite’s furniture had been flipped, the cushions and pillows shredded, the sheets and blankets ripped from the bed and scattered.
Her clothes lay strewn all over the floor, as did what remained of the contents of her laptop and camera bags.
Shit.
What would have happened to her if she’d been here when they—whoever they were—had arrived?
Would she still be alive?
Pulling a
steadying breath, she turned her attention back to James. She couldn’t let him see she was rattled. “What was that about?”
Damn it, her voice shook. A little.
Please don’t let him notice.
His eyebrows rose. “What?”
“Making me wait on the other side of the tape.”
“Ah. I wanted to see if any bad guys jumped out at me.”
“Ha ha.”
He pulled a wounded pout. “You don’t think I have my clients’ safety in mind?”
“Seriously, what was that about?”
“I just… needed to get a vibe from the room.”
“A vibe?” She narrowed her eyes. “You were less complicated when you were a dog groomer.”
“But not as rich. I make a fortune as a bodyguard.”
She snorted as she began to walk around the destroyed carcass of her room. Was the safe untouched? “Speaking of which, how does a dog groomer from the UK become an agent at what is clearly a high-end security and protection firm?”
“I’m very convincing at interviews.”
Pausing beside the torn remains of her laptop bag—cast aside like a used dishcloth—she fixed him in a level stare.
He shrugged. “I did a hundred pushups?”
“James.”
He pulled a breath, eyes closing for a second. “I have a unique set of skills that comes in handy every now and again. Especially to a company dealing in security and protection.”
“A unique set of skills?” She narrowed her eyes at him again. “Are you a spook, James? A spy? Or were you a spy? MI5? Is that why you took off three years ago without a word?”
“Well, my name is James.”
Throwing up her hands, she let out a dry bark. “What am I thinking. You’re not a spy. I wish you were though. At least that would mean you took off because your life was in danger, or mine, or some flipping shit like that. Not because you didn’t love me or want me the way I wanted—”
She slapped her hand to her mouth.
Fuck. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out.
“Hope.”
“No. Don’t ‘Hope’ me. I just want to get my stuff—whatever stuff I can—and get away.”
He didn’t move.
She glared at him, waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she stomped over to the cupboard housing her suite’s small safe and opened the door.
Hope's Wish Page 4
